STEVE THOMPSON

He Has The Keys (Sharing SC009) 1979 UK *

Although He Has The Keys has the feel of a home-made pop-and-folk cassette demo with its cheap electric—keyboard—plus-drum—machine sound, I was able to ﬁnd some low-key appeal in its simple quiet sincere presentation. Some of the keyboard songs have slow lazy summery melodies with soft playful female backing vocals (‘There’s Nothing That He Cannot Do’ and the opening ‘My Testimony’). Also a few songs like ‘Peace’ and ‘Compassion’ that receive acoustic guitar as the focus. I love the cheesy synthetic percussion keeping the beat on ‘It’s By Faith’ — almost sounds like a coffee percolator. All twelve songs were written by Thompson within the previous year. Same obscure UK Christian label that released records by Graham Davies and John Wilson. This one’s not near as good as those, but still has its place in the universe. (The Archivist, 4th edition by Ken Scott).

I have not acquired this album yet.Thank you Donald for the rear cover photo.